My glim lashes out with brutal urgency.
I focus on the figure sitting in the driver’s seat of that car and drag all the energy my magic is desperately seeking from her.
The warm, heady rush sweeps over me, and holy Sekhmet, it isn’t like the tests we’ve done with animals and strangers andsmaller injuries. It isn’t like anything except that night on the wet pavement while Asher convulsed next to me and screamed and?—
“Elodie. Elodie!”
Cole’s raw voice breaks through the suffocating memory. I gasp as if I’ve literally been drowning, the past dragging at me like a stubborn kelpie.
Hands squeeze my shoulders. Cole’s face fills my view, his eyes wide with a panicked gleam. “Hey. Stay with me.”
I blink, a sob hitching from my throat. My body sways toward him instinctively, the way it would have if this was the Cole I knew, the one I could openly callCole, not the professor who’s cut me down at every turn.
I catch myself before I’ve completely leaned against him, my stance stiffening. Then Cole is pulling me the rest of the way into his arms, wrapping them around me and tipping my head against his shoulder.
He’s so tall I’d have to bob up on my toes to brush the top of my head against his chin, but I’m still starkly aware of all the terrain suddenly pressed together through our clothes. Of the thrum of my bond mark calling out to him, of the familiar sinewy strength of his frame and the sharp scent I know so well.
“Hey,” he says again, his tone outright gentle now if still rough. His gloved thumb strokes over my shoulder blade, careful but soothing. “What happened there? Are you all right?”
My stomach knots. I waver between soaking up every bit of this affection he’s suddenly offering and pulling away before he can regret the momentary tenderness.
Because it’s hard to believe he won’t regret it.
“I—I don’t know what set me off,” I say in a rasp. “Maybe thinking about why we’re here? I was just suddenly remembering the poison and almost dying and…”
I don’t know what else to say. At least that much is almost true.
Cole swallows audibly. “Has that been happening a lot? Flashbacks like that?”
Wrapped in his embrace, I don’t know how to answer any way except as honestly as I can. “Not really. Only in dreams.”
His arms tense around me, tugging me a little closer and stirring a more welcome memory.
I jolt awake on the bed, pulse racing, and find myself enclosed in a cocoon of warmth and a foresty tang. The weight of Cole’s embrace penetrates the lingering fragments of cold pavement and streaks of blood.
“You were dreaming about Asher again,” he murmurs, his head tucked close to mine.
My eyes well up. His brother’s death must be as much of a nightmare for him as it is for me. I hate reminding him of it.
“Hey.” Steady fingers swipe away the tears that trickle down my cheeks. Cole sits us up, adjusting me so my back rests against his chest.
We’re alone in the bedroom—it won’t fit more than a double bed, so usually only one of my matches sleeps with me while the other two make do with the pull-out sofa and a mattress in the apartment’s living room.
Cole’s measured voice carries on by my ear. “You’re okay now. You’re here. It’s over. Nothing like that is ever going to happen again.”
Except it does. Over and over…
I can’t suppress a shudder.
Cole loops his arms around me to take one of my hands in his. He presses his thumbs into my palm and drags them to the tips of my fingers in a slow massage.
“You are strong,” he tells me as he trails the pressure up one finger and then another. “You can shape the world with these hands. You decide what happens to you next.”
That isn’t entirely true either, but I want to believe it somuch that the tension in my gut unwinds. I snuggle into him, the haze of sleep creeping back up over my mind…
This Cole doesn’t offer that level of comfort, of course. I doubt this version of the professor has any interest in showing me that much kindness, regardless of what our bond might urge.
That thought finally pushes me out of his embrace.